


Losing You

by undercoverwarlock



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Healer Draco Malfoy, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24648118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undercoverwarlock/pseuds/undercoverwarlock
Summary: Inspired by the prompt: Let’s get drunk and tell each other everything we’re afraid to say sober.Draco and Harry get a drink together. Then another. And another. Until it becomes a habit, and maybe something more.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 7
Kudos: 209





	Losing You

**Author's Note:**

> All characters belong to J.K. Rowling, with the exception of the handful of original characters mentioned in the text (Healers Hansen, Khuta and Xing).

Draco re-read the letter. He looked up at the barn owl preening its feathers on his dining room table and scowled.

“Potter told you not to leave until I replied, didn’t he?” he asked the bird. It blinked its unnerving black eyes at him. Draco sighed, leaning back in his chair, thinking it over. He didn’t want to be dealing with this right now. He had a shift at the hospital early in the morning, and he was still recovering from the last one that had ended only a few hours ago. The owl helped himself to Draco’s take-away meal. He sat up and read the letter one more time before turning it over and writing his reply. He attached it to the owl’s leg, gave it a gentle pet, and opened the window of his studio flat to let the bird out. He watched it fly out into the night. For a moment, he leaned against the window sash, breathing in the chill London air.

“Drinks with Harry bloody Potter,” he muttered. “Father would have been furious.” He closed the window and turned back to his dinner with a soft smile. He would never admit it, but he was looking forward to it.

The first time had been awkward. They had sat across from each other at the Leaky Cauldron, made stilted conversation for a few minutes, then left when the stares became unbearable. They had walked around Diagon Alley for a little while, talking about nothing in particular, circling around everything they knew should be said. Harry looked good, Draco noticed with a grimace – the past few years had only made his shoulders broader, his smile more confident. Draco, meanwhile, felt like he’d been whittled down, exhausted after the endless Healer training and residency at St. Mungo’s, haunted by the side-eyed looks he got from just about everyone. Somehow, when Draco finally made his excuses and was about to Apparate back to his flat, Harry asked if he would want to get together again. His green eyes were warm, and the smile he gave Draco was hopeful in a way that it had no right to be.

“Somewhere more private next time, maybe? Then we could really talk.”

Draco, out of shock, had nodded. Then he Apparated quickly out of there. When he got back to his flat, he laid on his back on his neatly made bed and closed his eyes, just so he could see that smile again.

The second time they had gotten coffee before both of their shifts, Draco at the hospital and Harry at the Ministry. Harry’s idea of somewhere private apparently was on a park bench in Muggle London.

“The great thing about being around Muggles,” said Harry, “is that they are perfectly happy ignoring you. They’re so wrapped up in their own problems that they wouldn’t care even if you were doing anything out of the ordinary.”

Draco had to agree with him there. But while they did talk more there on that bench, it was still surface-level conversation: Harry’s work as an Auror, what Ron and Hermione were doing – starting something called a non-profit for those hurt in the war – how Draco was finding living on his own, the easy stuff.

“Can I ask you something?” Harry asked at one point, when their cups were empty and their shifts were about to start but neither had made a move to leave. Draco shrugged. “Why did you become a Healer?”

Draco shrugged again. He played with the take-away cup in his hands rather than look at Harry’s earnest face. He could just give him the reason he gave everyone else, that he’d done it on a whim because he thought he’d be good at it, with all that traditional Malfoy swagger. Here with Harry, though, was different.

“I guess I wanted to help and do something for once,” he said at last. He took a deep breath to try to relax the tightness in his chest. “After everything, it was the least I could do.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Harry nod in understanding. Draco shook his head and stood, tossing the cup in the nearby trashcan, mumbling that he had to get to work. But before he left, he hesitated. He turned to Harry, still sat on the bench and looking down at his trainers as if he was disappointed to see Draco go. He felt a tug deep inside of him, a feeling he couldn’t name.

“Potter.”

Harry looked up, surprised. Draco smiled at him – not a sneer, a genuine smile, small but there nonetheless.

“Next time is on me.”

Harry beamed.

It became strangely routine. At least once a week, they would get together, before or after shifts, over a drink or dinner, sometimes just walking around Muggle London or sitting in a park. Always talking, but never asking anything too deep, too personal. Harry told Draco about some of the situations he got into as an Auror, and Draco shared stories of his training at the hospital. Harry told him about his terrible attempts to cook since Kreecher had passed away, and Draco admitted he almost never cooked for himself, not after he had left a fork in a bowl in the microwave and almost set his flat on fire. Harry admitted he had started reading a lot of Young Adult fiction for fun, and Draco had brought him a stack of his favourite classic novels to “educate him.” It was easy, Draco thought at one point as he glanced at Harry while they walked along the Thames, to be friends with Harry Potter.

Then, one day, Harry didn’t show up. Draco waited at the café they frequented, drank his cappuccino, and stormed off to work when he couldn’t wait any longer. When he did get to work, however, he had barely changed into his hospital robes when the chaos hit him. Nurses and orderlies running in that calm-but-frantic way they had, listing off diagnoses and symptoms. Wizards and witches, bloodied and sobbing and barking orders at each other, crowded the halls. The Healer on duty pulled Draco aside. There had been an attack, she told him. A bunch of Aurors had gone to bust a group of Dark wizards living in Knockturn Alley and had walked into a trap. One was dead, and most were seriously wounded. Draco could barely hear her above the ringing in his ears. One was dead. One was –

“Where are they?” he demanded. “The injured.”

She told him, and he took off, ignoring her shouts of protest behind him. One was dead. He had to know. He knocked into a couple of nurses as he ran, almost fell as he took a corner at full speed. One was dead. It couldn’t be him. When one of the orderlies tried to bar his way, he held up his badge with his credentials and practically flew past him into the ward. Only then did he skid to a halt. He took stock of the room – twelve beds, five with witches with nasty looking burns, three screened off by privacy curtains, one empty, another three with bandaged wizards. Then his eyes landed on the last bed, the one by the tall windows. It was empty, but unmade. There was blood on the sheets.

Draco stopped the nurse passing him, gripping her by the shoulders to look her in the eyes.

“Who was in the last bed?” he demanded. She looked startled. He knew he must look like he had escaped the mental ward upstairs, but he didn’t have time to care.

“They moved him into a private room. He needs 24-hour supervision with his injuries, not to mention it being him, you know?” she said, clutching her notes to her chest as she tried to step out of his grasp.

“Which room?”

It wasn’t far from the main room, but by the time Draco reached it, he was panting, thoroughly out of breath. But it was the right one – two Aurors were guarding the door, their arms crossed and glowering suspiciously at Draco. Once again, Draco showed them his badge as he tried to steady his breathing and look at least somewhat presentable. The Aurors shared a meaningful look, but reluctantly stepped aside.

The room was small, the only light coming through the curtained window making it feel smaller, colder, as it cast a blue light on the figure in the bed. The nurse on duty looked up when she heard him come in. She was sat by the bed on a metal chair and had been tapping her wand nervously against her knee, making it snow on the floor at her feet. Her face was tight with focus, a few curls escaping her tight bun to fall into her dark eyes. She pressed her lips together in a thin line when she saw him.

“What’s the diagnosis?” he asked – it took every ounce of willpower he had to keep his voice level, professional.

“A curse rebounded. He’ll be fine, but there was a complication when they were Healing him, and he started losing a lot of blood – the curse kept the blood from congealing, and they realised too late that the spells they were using were making it worse. But again, he’s fine, they managed to correct the mistake,” she added quickly at the look on Draco’s face, which he again tried to master with a great deal of difficulty. “The over-night supervision is just to make sure the spells hold. He’ll probably be released in the morning.”

Draco let out the breath he had been holding. His shoulders slumped in relief. He scrubbed his face with his hand and murmured that the nurse could go. “I can watch him. Healer Khuta can do my rounds, he owes me. Tell Healer Hansen I will be here, won’t you? I’m afraid I left in a bit of a hurry and was a bit rude.”

“You, rude? What a thought,” the nurse teased. Draco rolled his eyes. She sighed and stood, handing him her notes. “Your choice,” she said. “I’ll go tell Healers Khuta and Hansen. And Malfoy?” she added over her shoulder as she paused in the doorway. “No funny business, okay?”

“For Merlin’s sake, I am a professional!” Draco retorted, but he smiled back nonetheless. The nurse laughed and the door clicked shut behind her. Draco turned to look at Harry lying in the bed and collapsed into the vacated chair. “Just had to be the hero, didn’t you, Potter?” he murmured.

There was an IV in Harry’s arm connected to a bag of blood hanging from the rack on the other side of the bed. His chest was covered in bandages, and there was a cut on his lip that still looked fresh. He was breathing easy, though, and his sleeping face didn’t give away any sign of pain. Someone had removed his glasses and put them on the bedside table. He looked so young without them, despite the dark stubble on his jaw. Draco had never noticed how long Harry’s lashes were, or that his black hair had streaks of sun-lightened brown in some of the curls. The last time he had been able to really look at the other man’s face, Harry had had a Stinging Hex and Draco had barely recognised him. No, that was a lie. He had recognised him immediately. It didn’t help that Ron and Hermione had been there with him, but more than anything, Draco would know Harry anywhere.

Draco set the notes on the bedside table next to Harry’s glasses as he ran a hand through his dishevelled hair. He dispelled the snow that the nurse had created under the chair before getting as comfortable as he could. He knew the spells Harry would be under right now, and that he wouldn’t be awake for hours. So he crossed his arms across his chest and let himself look, properly look at Harry. Memorising the dark hair on his arms, the pale scars from years of Quidditch, the way the light played with the angles of his collar bone and cheeks. Noticing the way the bandages pressed against the chestnut coloured skin. His eyes travelled down to where the sheets covered him, then blushed and looked away. He was a professional, he reminded himself. He was not going to get preoccupied about whether or not his patient had pants on. Which he probably did. And trousers. And socks. He was probably fully clothed from the waist down. Because this was a hospital. Draco sighed.

“You better wake up, Potter,” he told the sleeping figure. “Because I am going to murder you when you do.”

Draco spent his entire shift by Harry’s side. Even when his shift ended, he insisted on staying, but Healer Hansen told him to at least leave and get something to eat. “He’s not going anywhere,” she reminded him. So Draco had begrudgingly gone back to his flat, eaten some cold left-overs, grabbed a book and went straight back to the hospital. It was a different nurse on duty when he got back to Harry’s room, a rookie he had never seen before and who insisted on staying even when Draco told him he could leave. So Draco had conjured up another chair and sat down to read his book in the corner. They couldn’t kick him out for visiting.

He stayed there all night. At some point, the nurse had been relieved for a quick break and when he returned, there was a strange look on his face. Draco had raised an eyebrow back at him and the nurse had blushed and wouldn’t look at Draco the rest of the night.

Draco didn’t know when he had fallen asleep. He just knew that one moment he had been reading _Anna Karenina_ by the light of his wand, and the next the sun was streaming through the curtained window. He sat up, mumbled a quick ‘Nox’ and put his wand back in his robes.

“Good morning.”

Harry was awake. Harry was awake and wearing his glasses and grinning at Draco, looking so self-satisfied and smug. Draco tried to scowl at him, but his lips betrayed him, and he found himself smiling back.

“Morning, Potter. You gave us quite the scare,” he said. He stood and stretched before setting his book on the chair. Harry raised an eyebrow.

“By ‘us’ you mean ‘you’, right?” Harry asked pointedly. At this Draco frowned. Harry gestured at the empty chair on the other side of his bed. “The nurse said the overnight supervision was just a precaution, but that you’ve been here all night, even though they told you to go home. Did I really scare you that bad, Malfoy?”

Draco glowered at the chair the nurse had smartly vacated. Harry chuckled.

“Don’t blame him, I asked,” he said. He began to sit up properly, casting off the sheets – yes, he was wearing trousers, Draco noticed – and setting his feet on the floor as he made to get up. Draco held up a hand to stop him.

“Wait, wait, hold on.” Draco pulled out his wand and began to check the other man’s vitals, fussing with the bandages, trying not to register how warm Harry’s skin was against his fingertips or the way Harry smelled like sleep and sweat and clinical disinfectant. He was sure he didn’t smell much better, nor look much better, not after sleeping in a hospital chair all night. He did notice that Harry’s breath seemed to catch at his touch, and that his heart rate was raised. He frowned. “Hm, your pulse is a bit high, can you take a deep breath for me? Okay, that sounds fine,” he said, ignoring how Harry dramatically inhaled and exhaled with a roll of his eyes. “Right, well, the wounds look like they have healed just fine…”

“Malfoy?”

“Hm?”

“Healer Xing released me an hour ago. I’ve just been waiting for you to wake up.”

“Oh.” Draco blushed and stepped back. Harry didn’t get up just yet. He looked up into Draco’s face, those green eyes soft as he smiled.

“Thanks for looking after me,” he said, his voice a gentle rumble. Draco bit his lip as he tried to stifle the shiver that ran down his spine at the sound. He punched Harry playfully in the shoulder. “Ow! What was that for?”

“For scaring the shit out of me, Potter. Merlin, I thought you had died.” Draco tried to say this lightly, but his voice betrayed him, and he could see in Harry’s face that the other man had heard it too. Harry shook his head and stood, swaying only a little but raising a hand to reassure Draco that he didn’t need any help.

“Well, let me make it up to you then. I don’t think I’m in any shape to Apparate right now, but if you want to Floo back to Grimmauld Place with me, I think I owe you a drink. I did stand you up yesterday.”

“It is,” he checked his watch, “eight in the morning, Potter.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you have work?”

“No, I actually have this weekend off for once. But it is a little early for a drink, isn’t it?”

Harry shrugged. “Never said it had to be alcoholic,” he pointed out. He pulled on the button-down that the nurse probably had left on the end of the bed for him. Draco watched his nimble fingers do up the buttons and bit his lip to hold himself in check. When Harry looked up, he quickly busied himself with picking up his book and straightening the equipment around the bed. He felt Harry’s eyes on him but refused to return the look.

“So, is that a yes?” Harry asked, his voice soft. Draco’s breath came out with a hitch. Mentally, he cursed himself. Out loud, he said,

“Someone has to make sure you don’t go hurting yourself again.”

When he turned around, Harry was grinning back at him.

“So this is what Black’s old place looks like,” Draco said as he stepped out of the kitchen fireplace, dusting the ash off his shoulders. Harry looked around them with a proud nod.

“Hermione and I overhauled the place when I moved in after the war. Kreecher wasn’t too happy at first, but when he realised we were fixing the place up he didn’t mind so much. Now, what can I get you? I have tea and coffee, but I also have something stronger if you want it,” he added with a cheeky wink. Draco rolled his eyes at him.

“Tea is fine, thanks,” he said. He followed Harry around the other side of the large kitchen table and leaned against it, watching Harry busy himself with the tea things. Part of him was checking for any shakiness or signs of fatigue, but mostly, he had to admit, he was just appreciating the way Harry moved. He smiled to himself when he saw Harry stick his tongue out a bit as he heaved the old black kettle onto the stove – apparently an electric kettle had been vetoed by the old house elf – and when Harry’s shirt rode up, exposing his muscular back as he reached for the tins of tea leaves in the cupboard, Draco didn’t look away. Harry seemed to notice, but didn’t say anything, just raised an eyebrow at Draco over his shoulder.

“Milk and sugar?” he asked. There again was that husky tone to his voice, the one that made Draco wrap his arms tight around himself to hold back everything it did to him.

“No, thank you, just black,” Draco replied. Harry nodded, and set out some milk in a jug for himself.

“This will take a minute. I’m just going to pop to the loo to freshen up. Please, feel free to make yourself at home.”

As he left, Draco ignored the pang in his chest from his absence. He muttered, “pull yourself together,” and tried to distract himself by looking through the cupboards.

If Harry had an organisational system, it wasn’t one Draco understood. There were sweets and a tin of mints next to the porridge oats and cereal. Above that, bags of rice were shoved in next to a loaf of bread and a jar of curry paste. Draco stole a mint and popped it in his mouth as he moved to the next cabinet, which turned out to be a mess of various spices, not all labelled, and spare potion ingredients. He shook his head. Harry might be the saviour of the wizarding world, but an organisational aficionado he was not.

That’s how Harry found him, going through and putting little labels on the jars of spices in his neat, elegant handwriting with a Muggle permanent marker he had found in with the spoons. For a moment, Harry watched him from the doorway, not making a sound so as not to disturb him. But then the kettle started to whistle, and they both jumped. Harry busied himself pouring the hot water in a bright red teapot with a chip in its handle and didn’t say anything about Draco’s new labelling system. Draco, meanwhile, blushing furiously, tried to hide his handiwork by shoving the spices back into the cupboard and stuffing the marker in an open jar of what looked like dried Doxy eggs. Harry shook his head with a smile as he set the tea things on the kitchen table and gestured for Draco to sit down.

They sat there, drinking their tea in silence. Then Harry put his cup down.

“I have to ask,” he began.

“Of course you do,” Draco sighed. Harry raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment as he continued.

“Why did you? Stay?”

Draco set his teacup down. Then he got up and, rummaging in the now familiar cupboards, pulled out a half-empty bottle of Firewhiskey and poured a measure into his tea. Harry, eyes wide, chuckled.

“I thought it was too early for alcohol?” he teased. Draco, replacing the cap, set the bottle down next to the teapot.

“Not if you’re going to be asking questions,” Draco said pointedly as he sat back down. Noticing the confusion on Harry’s face, he let out a huff and said, “You ask a lot of questions, Potter, and they require a lot of patience. So.” He took a sip of his spiked tea. “Here is my dose of patience.”

It was another moment, however, before Draco worked up the courage to answer Harry’s question.

“I stayed because I wanted to be there when you woke up. Happy?” he said at last. Harry blinked in surprise. The Firewhiskey was starting to fill Draco with a quiet mischief, however, and without asking, Draco poured a measure of it into Harry’s cup. Harry didn’t protest, only laughed. “My turn,” said Draco. “What the hell were you thinking, running into a trap like that?”

“Didn’t know was a trap, did I?” Harry pointed out. He took a sip, swallowed, and continued, “I just got an owl that said they needed back up, and when I got there it was an absolute cluster-fuck. Not my fault I got caught in the cross fire, now was it?”

Draco grumbled something under his breath as he brought his cup up to his lips.

“My turn again,” said Harry. He picked up the bottle and reached over to offer it to Draco, who held out his cup for a refill. “If we’re just asking questions, let’s go for the hard-hitting ones, shall we?”

“Such a Gryffindor,” Draco sneered, but didn’t object.

“Do you still talk to your family?”

Draco took a drink. “To be fair, not that hard a question,” he said as he set his cup down. “Of course, I still talk to Mother, and we visit Father’s grave together at least once a year.”

Harry frowned. “Where you able to make it to the funeral? I know you were still under house arrest when it happened.”

Draco held up a finger. “It’s my turn. I get to ask a question.”

Harry shrugged and allowed Draco to pour him another cup.

“What happened between you and the Weasley girl?” Draco asked. The whiskey was making him brave, filling him with warmth that numbed the anxiety usually so ready and present in his chest. “All the Prophet said was that she ran off to join the Holy Head Harpies.”

“She did. With Luna Lovegood.”

Draco almost spat out his whiskey. Harry laughed. “Oh yeah, turned out she’d been trying to hide the fact she was in love with Luna for ages. That’s why she dated so many boys in school. Anyways, I hear from her every so often, it sounds like she and Luna are doing really well.”

And so they went back and forth, asking question after question, some silly – “Boxers or briefs?”, to which Harry replied, “How can you even ask that?” – and some more serious, like:

“If you could go back in time and switch sides, would you?” Harry asked, his words only a little slurred despite his pink cheeks.

“In a heartbeat,” said Draco without thinking. “Hell, I think about it every day. Every time I see this damn Mark,” he pulled up his sleeve, exposing the writhing black Mark stark against his pale forearm, “I ask myself what I was thinking. Why I let it happen. Why…” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to hold back the tears threatening to bubble up. When he opened his eyes again, Harry was staring at the Mark, a whirlpool of emotions on his face – fear, disgust, pity, sorrow. Draco let out a ragged breath. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. Harry looked up at him. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “For everything.”

Harry stood up and, using the table for support, made his away to stand in front of Draco. He knelt before him and took Draco’s arm in his warm, calloused hands. This time, Draco didn’t hide the shiver Harry’s touch induced.

“I’m sorry, too,” said Harry huskily. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to the tattooed skin.

“Oh,” Draco exhaled shakily. “Oh,” he gasped again as Harry’s lip travelled up his arm. “Oh,” as Harry pressed a kiss to his clothed shoulder, again as he trailed his lips along Draco’s collarbone over his shirt, and again as he mouthed along Draco’s neck. When they were nose to nose, Harry paused, his breath heavy and smelling of tea and whiskey. He glanced from Draco’s ocean-grey eyes to his lips, and the hunger there made Draco shudder.

“Can I kiss you?” Harry murmured.

“Now you’re asking?” Draco half-laughed in hysterical disbelief. This seemed to throw Harry, who opened his mouth to say something. Before he could, though, Draco closed the distance between them and pressed his lips to Harry’s. One of his hands tangled in Harry’s wild curls while the other all but tugged Harry into his lap.

Their kiss grew sloppy as Harry rushed to straddle Draco, and they laughed giddily against each other’s mouths as their hands explored. Harry broke away, leaning his forehead against Draco’s so that he could focus on unbuttoning Draco’s shirt. Draco moaned as Harry’s fingers delicately traced the scars on his chest, as he kissed his apologies into Draco’s neck, as the pad of his thumb brushed over a nipple as he pushed Draco’s shirt off. When he finally leaned back to take off his own shirt, Draco slapped his hands away and did it instead. Harry watched him, his pupils blown wide with lust as Draco finished undoing his buttons and tugged the shirt off Harry’s shoulders. His pale fingers then tentatively traced the outline of the bandages that wrapped Harry’s torso, frowning as he realised how close he had come to losing him. Harry grasped his chin to make him look him in the eye.

“I’m okay,” he reassured him. He let go of Draco’s chin to caress his cheek and smiled soft and tender. “I’m here now. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Draco blinked away the tears pricking at his eyes and leaned forward to kiss the golden boy. Harry was right, he thought, gathering the other man impossibly closer to him. He was here now. And Draco was never going to let him go.

**Author's Note:**

> If you've read my other works, you might notice a trend in that there's always a moment of apologies between Draco and Harry. That's because I feel like that kind of moment always seems to be missing in other works and I think it's crucial for their relationship to have that understanding. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading this.


End file.
